By Jolie McCullough, The Texas Tribune
Jan. 13, 2023
It’s been greater than three days since Texas prisoners throughout the state began a hunger strike to protest indefinite solitary confinement, and the Texas Department of Criminal Justice has confirmed no less than 72 persons are nonetheless ravenous themselves.
An activist working with the protesting males believes the quantity is nearer to 120, down from the greater than 300 she estimated started refusing meals on Tuesday. Striking prisoners are medically evaluated every day, and docs can force feed a prisoner whose situation worsens, in line with jail spokesperson Amanda Hernandez.
“Our protest will remain peaceful and spans all races and religions to improve the conditions for ALL within the confines of the TDCJ,” learn a press launch from the prisoners Friday, compiled by unbiased activist Brittany Robertson from messages she obtained from six hanging males at three prisons.
Thousands of prisoners are saved in solitary confinement in Texas. In November, greater than 500 prisoners had been in isolation for greater than a decade.
Under TDCJ coverage, prisoners are assigned to solitary if they’re escape dangers, have dedicated violent assaults or severe offenses in jail, or are confirmed members of harmful jail gangs. The hunger strike targets the latter.
Months earlier than the strike, the starving men sent a proposal to jail officers and state lawmakers to vary Texas’ observe of placing — and conserving — prisoners in solitary as a result of they’re affiliated with a gang, even when they’ve had good habits behind bars. The proposal requested the jail system to shift from a “gang-status” solitary placement to “behavior-based,” and supply clear tips and agency timelines on how and when folks in solitary would get out.
The proposal is just like a settlement agreement reached in federal courtroom in 2015 towards California’s solitary confinement practices. After a wide-scale, two-month hunger strike in 2013 and years of prisoner-led litigation, California agreed to now not place folks in solitary primarily based solely on their gang standing, nor maintain them in isolation indefinitely.
Prison gangs, typically organized by race, are extraordinarily harmful and trigger a lot of the violence behind bars, in line with Michele Deitch, director of the Prison and Jail Innovation Lab on the University of Texas at Austin. Still, she mentioned the prisoners’ calls for are cheap, particularly as solitary confinement past 15 days is taken into account torture by international human rights standards.
“We’re talking not days, but years, and it’s indefinite,” she mentioned final week as prisoners have been readying themselves for the strike.
So far, TDCJ has not given any indication it can bend. Hernandez mentioned company intelligence pinned the origin of the strike to an order from an Aryan Brotherhood of Texas member in federal jail.
“If known prison gang members in state custody do not like their current confinement conditions, they are free to renounce their gang and we will offer them a pathway back into general population,” Hernandez mentioned in an e-mail Friday. “We will not, however, give them free reign within our correctional facilities to recruit new members and try to continue their criminal enterprises.”
Robertson dismissed TDCJ’s declare, countering that many, if not the bulk, of the lads hanging are members of the Mexican Mafia or different gangs. They wouldn’t take orders from a member of the Aryan Brotherhood, she mentioned.
“These men have spent years living together and have found that if they join together in a cause, in order to want something better for all their members, they can all rehabilitate and move on,” she mentioned in a textual content Friday.
Prisoners and Deitch additionally argued the reentry program for confirmed gang members to resign their gangs and return into the final jail inhabitants, as Hernandez famous, can take years to get into. It can also require prisoners to incriminate themselves or snitch on different gang members, they mentioned, conserving many away from it.
The prisoners plan to proceed hanging by means of the vacation weekend until jail officers meet with a committee of various gang members hoping to enter negotiations, in line with the prisoners’ press launch.
Disclosure: University of Texas at Austin has been a monetary supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news group that’s funded partly by donations from members, foundations and company sponsors. Financial supporters play no position within the Tribune’s journalism. Find a whole list of them here.
“More than 70 Texas prisoners are 3 days into a hunger strike protesting harsh solitary confinement practices” was first printed by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media group that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public coverage, politics, authorities and statewide points.
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This article initially appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2023/01/13/texas-prison-hunger-strike-solitary/.
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